Saturday, July 21, 2012

âDonât be afraid.â Those were the dying words of Thomas Wayne, said to his traumatized young son after being shot behind a theater by a thug named Joe Chill. The scene in Batman Begins resonates anew with eerie irony â" and hopefully, a little inspiration â" one day after the opening of Â The Dark Knight Rises and the tragedy in Aurora. Despite the terror felt nationwide following the violence in Colorado, and even in spite of it, moviegoers packed into multiplexes yesterday to watch the conclusion of Christopher Nolanâs trilogy of Batman movies. And now, you have questions, opinions, quibbles, praises, and many other things to say about this heavy superhero spectacular â" particularly the way it ended.

So letâs talk about it. Fearlessly.

And with a massive amount of detailâ¦ which is to say, SPOILER ALERT!

Â Seriously: If you have not yet seen Rises, STOP READING NOW.Â Because weâre not holding back on anything, beginning withâ¦Â

Reaction: With Rises, we get a superhero story that ends with a superhero deciding that the life of a costumed vigilanteÂ â" no matter how needed or noble â" is really no kind of life at all. Fancy that. The Dark KnightÂ series has been rather ambivalent about its iconic protagonist; the message seems to be that Batman is a necessary evil, a flawed fix for a culture in crisis. Yes, he contains great values â" perseverance; incorruptibility; justice. But Batman is a vigilante. Not acceptable. And Bruce Wayne is a damaged man who feels like a monster and so he acts like one. Batman may bring hope to Gotham â" but Bruce degrades himself more and more each time he puts on the suit. Not good. And no more.

Question: Were you bugged by the fake-death chicanery?

THE FINAL FATE OF BATMAN, PART TWO

The Cowl Is Passed

What happened: Bruce Wayne left his Batman legacy â" suits, stuff, and subterranean HQ â" to disillusioned ex-cop John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). The final moments of the film saw Blake swinging into The Batcave and riding a rising platform filled with cabinets containing all of Bruceâs secrets. Sly in-joke: Johnâs legal first name? âRobin.â

Question: Does this mean that Gordon-Levitt (who was excellent) is about to get his own Batman franchise? Our sources say: No. Which means weâll never get an answer to our other burning question: Will Blake keep Batmanâs name? Or might he rechristen himself Nightwing?

THE TRUTH ABOUT BANE

What happened: The first two acts of Rises presented the filmâs primary force of antagonism as an ideologically-driven revolutionary bent on bringing power to the people by forcing it on them â" and by slaughtering the corpulent blue bloods of Gotham City. The big twist? Bane didnât really give a crap about anyone, plebes or princes. He also wasnât his own man. Bane was just a jacked-up puppet, acting on orders from â" and out of love for â" Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), a.k.a. Talia al Ghul. Sheâs the daughter of Raâs al Ghul (Liam Neeson), whose League of Shadows tried to destroy Gotham City in Batman Begins, because they had deemed it corrupt and fallen. Basically, Talia wanted to finish her fatherâs work â" and avenge his death.

Reaction: The whiplash turn brought the saga full circle, and rightly brought the larger-than-life lout down to poignant, pathetic human-scale size â" but too much so. And his death â" he was blasted by Catwoman with a projectile from the Batpod â" felt anti-climactic. Bane deserved to be more interesting than he turned out to be.

Questions: Did you wonder during the movie if Bane was going to be revealed to be someone we knew? At one point, I had convinced myself that Bane was actually Raâs al Ghul, reanimated and reconstructed with bionics and stuff. As for the rogueâs much talked about voice, I enjoyed the arch garble that Tom Hardy developed for the character, even when I didnât totally understand it. I bet Bane could do a wicked funny Goldfinger impression. No, Mister Wayne, I expect you to die!

Â THE PLEASANT SURPRISE: CATWOMAN

Going into Rises, fanboys and media types were skeptical that Anne Hathaway had the chops and presence to cut it as Catwoman. Let the haters eat crow. The Rachel Getting Married Oscar nominee made for a cool and credible femme fatale/anti-hero, and better, she brought some refreshing levity to a movie that really needed it.

Iâm still trying to make sense of these themes as they were presented in the film, or if they were really in the film at all. Â Baneâs switch from self-righteous agent of judgment to Talia-whipped puppydog muddied his metaphorical meaning. And I think it takes a willful misread of Nolanâs Bruce/Batman â" or forgetfulness about the characterâs backstory and trilogy arc â" to assert that heâs some kind of jackbooted stooge of the 1%. I did find it interesting that Bruce was willing to let âBruce Wayneâ â" meaning, the vacuous, selfish billionaire he played in public â" be counted among Baneâs victims. Even Bruce wanted that guy dead. Rises ends with Bruce turning his mansion into an orphanage, but Iâm not sure what the takeaway was supposed to be. That the rich can and should do more?

Where I find meaning in this trilogy of Batman movies â" but not comfort â" is in their tone. The Dark Knight trilogy has captured the unease of our times â" the post-traumatic stress of so much catastrophe; the ominous dread that thereâs more and maybe worse to come; the worry (and denial) that weâre handling the whole thing wrong and becoming worse for it. It was all brilliantly jittery. And like Bruce Wayne, Iâm ready to leave the dark night behind and make a better, truer future.